“Yes, sir.” Bradamont stood up, but hesitated. “Am I authorized to share this information with Colonel Rogero?”

  Geary considered that before shaking his head again. “Not yet.”

  “I understand.” She paused once more. “I’m pretty certain that his advice would be to make use of whoever your source is to set up the bait. Feed the source misinformation to pass on.”

  “That sounds risky for the source,” Geary said.

  “It would be. You’d have to be willing to sacrifice the source.” She must have seen the reaction Geary wasn’t able to completely hide. “I understand that might be a hard decision to make.”

  After Bradamont had left, Geary sat gazing at one wall. This would be a lot easier if the source were someone other than Arwen Duellos, he thought. Then winced internally at the thought that he’d more willingly risk the life of someone else, as if they counted for less than she did even though they’d also be someone’s daughter or son, perhaps someone’s spouse, or someone’s mother or father. Yet he had to admit that’s exactly how he felt even as he sought reasons not to make such an awful choice. “The conspirators probably wouldn’t believe anything Ensign Duellos told them. They’d wonder how a junior officer would be privy to such information.”

  Tanya Desjani spoke slowly. “It would be plausible if Ensign Duellos heard the information from her father. It would be plausible that you’d tell Captain Duellos something like that, though we’d have to urge him to share it with his daughter without saying why and . . .” She broke off, grimacing. “I hate myself for even thinking of that.”

  “I didn’t hear it,” Geary said. As if in punishment for his lie, an urgent alert sounded on his room’s comm panel. “A message from Captain Plant on Warspite.” As he reached for the command to accept the message, his mind quickly came up with a dozen horrible reasons why Warspite would be sending him a special high-security message.

  Tanya waited, her posture tense, as the image of Captain Plant appeared. “Admiral, I have information I thought you should receive as soon as possible,” Plant began in a manner that didn’t carry any hint of tragic news. “First off, I had the opportunity for a couple of more counseling sessions with Ensign Duellos. I confirmed to my satisfaction that she was indeed lured into the conspiracy by appeals to her patriotism and claims that the conspirators were actually working under the table for you. That explains why she came to me when she realized the conspiracy was in reality aimed at you.”

  Plant gestured to one side. “Ensign Duellos gave me access to the comms being used by the conspirators. The message feeds are hidden in routine fleet network traffic. Supposedly, Ensign Duellos is one of six in a covert cell, of which nine cells exist aboard Warspite.”

  “You’d think she’d be more upset to hear that,” Desjani said. “More than seventy sailors on her ship engaged in subversion?”

  Plant’s composure did seem strange, but her next words explained the oddity.

  “I had my most trusted and skilled code monkey aboard Warspite go over Ensign Duellos’s information,” Plant said. “All of those in it are represented by avatars, and it is the opinion of that expert that the great majority of the avatars do not in fact represent real people. They bear signs of being fronts for artificial intelligence programs mimicking human responses. In my expert’s assessment, only perhaps seven of the avatars at most are fronts for real personnel aboard Warspite. It’s certainly possible that on other ships that aren’t as well-run as Warspite there’s a higher percentage of real lower-level conspirators, but on my ship at least it is very likely the leaders are misleading their own followers about the popularity of and support for their efforts.

  “Ensign Duellos will notify us the moment she receives the malware, and is aware of the danger she is currently facing if her cooperation with fleet authorities is discovered. I will await further instructions. To the honor of our ancestors. Plant, out.”

  Desjani let out a short laugh, sounding relieved. “Trust Plant to put in a dig against ships that aren’t as well-run as her ship. This is good news. The senior personnel involved can still cause a lot of damage, but they don’t have the sort of widespread backup among the crews that we feared.”

  “It looks like that,” Geary said, rubbing his eyes as he took in the information. “But she may well be right that ships like Burdock’s Encroach have more real conspirators in the crew. We can’t be complacent.” Something else occurred to him, causing his jaw to tighten. “Plant wasn’t able to identify who the real sailors involved in this aboard her ship are. Which means Arwen Duellos could still be targeted by any of them.”

  “Or another assassin in a stealth suit who came from a different ship,” Desjani said. “How can we set up a bait situation without making Ensign Duellos part of the bait and therefore one of the targets?”

  “Let’s hope we can figure that out.”

  * * *

  AMBASSADOR Rycerz called about an hour after the arrival at the new star system, looking calm and conspiratorial. “It’s all looking good, Admiral. I wanted to ensure you knew that I now control the Dancer-modified transmitter aboard Boundless.”

  Geary had taken the call in his stateroom, hoping that he’d figure out a means to tell Rycerz about the latest development. “Did something happen to Dr. Macadams?” he asked, hoping that he was projecting surprise about that.

  “Dr. Macadams is confined to his stateroom,” Ambassador Rycerz said, smiling. “By order of Colonel Webb on grounds of security matters. Sadly, I cannot overrule Colonel Webb on security matters.”

  “That’s a shame,” Geary said.

  “The majority of Dr. Macadams’s staff are willing to work under different supervision,” Rycerz continued. “But they need lessons and examples of how to communicate with the Dancers in ways that are actually effective. I’m requesting permission for them to speak directly with General Charban and his staff.”

  “I gladly grant permission for that,” Geary said. “General Charban has wanted to discuss those matters with Macadams’s people for some time. He’ll be happy to finally be able to pass on some of his information. Speaking of which, I’m assuming you reviewed the message about the way the Dancers think that I sent you on arrival here?”

  “Yes.” Ambassador Rycerz looked vaguely unhappy. “It might be useful, but it’s only speculation.”

  “I thought it was a very important insight,” Geary said, taken aback by the ambassador’s lack of enthusiasm.

  “Speculation,” Rycerz repeated. “Dr. Cresida is a brilliant physicist. She’s not a behavioral scientist. There are big differences between how the universe works and how people work.”

  “Physicists are people, too,” Geary said. “And I believe that Dr. Cresida has not confined her interests to one field.”

  “Perhaps.” Ambassador Rycerz offered a smile that seemed aimed more at mollifying Geary’s feelings than expressing any agreement. “For now, let’s focus on what we can learn about communicating better with the Dancers. I’ll be in touch. Please route any future communications with the Dancers through me.”

  Unhappy to have had a hopeful insight discounted, he decided to try another tack. “I’d like to try contacting the Taon ships in this star system,” Geary said.

  Rycerz shook her head. “Not yet. We need to concentrate on the Dancers. We can look into the Taon after we’ve gotten things running with the Dancers. That’s my mission, and my priority.”

  Increasingly unhappy with this conversation, Geary decided to shift topics again. “I need to speak with you about other matters.”

  “We are speaking,” the ambassador said.

  “These are matters requiring the highest security,” Geary said. “In light of concerns about communications, I thought another in-person meeting aboard Dauntless would be wise.”

  Rycerz pursed her lips, then shook her head. “I don’t think it would be wise for me to leave Boundless at such a critical juncture of our negotiations with the Dancers,” she said, apparently deliberately echoing Geary’s words.

  “Then I’ll find another means to get the information to you,” Geary said. He sat glaring at his display after the ambassador’s image had vanished. Her position much more secure, the ambassador was asserting her authority again.

  Not wanting to put off the inevitable, he called Charban. “I have good news and bad news, General.”

  “Oh, how about the good news for a change?” Charban replied.

  “Dr. Macadams no longer controls the transmitter on Boundless. Members of his former staff should be contacting you directly for advice on communicating effectively with the Dancers.”

  “That is good,” Charban said, visibly surprised. “It’s great. What’s the bad news?”

  “Now that she controls the transmitter, Ambassador Rycerz wants all communications with the Dancers routed through her.”

  Charban nodded, smiling crookedly. “That didn’t take long, did it? We’re no longer necessary except to pass on what we know and get out of the way. What if the Dancers don’t want to deal exclusively with Boundless? Am I supposed to ignore any messages sent to us here on Dauntless?”

  “No,” Geary said. “We’ll prepare replies to any messages sent specifically to us, and forward them to Boundless with the provision that unless otherwise directed we will transmit them ourselves.”

  “I love that ‘unless otherwise directed’ thing,” Charban said. “It keeps things from being ignored or bureaucratically bottled up. All right. We have our orders. Thank you, Admiral.”

  “Thank you, General.” Whatever else happened, he wasn’t going to let General Charban be sidelined.

  * * *

  THE ambassador had expressed her wishes to Geary about communicating with the Taon ships, but five hours later Geary learned that the Taon had their own ideas in that area.

  “I think you want to be on the bridge,” Tanya Desjani said. “We have a message coming in from an unknown source. It conforms to the video formats used by the Dancers, so we can view it, and appears to originate from near the gas giant closest to the star. That gas giant is where the Taon are,” she added. “I can forward it to you in your stateroom if you prefer.”

  “Hold on until I get to the bridge,” Geary said. He moved quickly, but not so quickly that sailors observing him would think anything was wrong or danger threatened. In fact, things were wrong and danger did threaten, but from within the fleet. He didn’t want word going around that he believed the Taon were a danger, because as far as he knew they weren’t.

  Yet.

  Once on the bridge and in the fleet command seat, he nodded to Desjani. “All right, Captain,” Geary said, bracing himself for the worst (open hostility) and hoping for the best (friendly overtures) from the Taon. “Accept the message.”

  FOURTEEN

  A window opened on his display as well as on Desjani’s, revealing a brief burst of pixelization before steadying into an image.

  Instead of numerous beings on a large bridge or control deck, he saw an image of a creature seated alone in what seemed to be a small compartment whose walls were lined with controls and displays. The creature gave the impression of being broadly built, the head seeming to rest almost directly on the shoulders, numerous bony ridges and protrusions marking the head. Two bony ridges coming down a short distance from the jaws might mark vestiges of what were originally neck-protecting shields. The skin had a gray cast to it, and any hair must be too fine to be apparent.

  But the arrangement of sensory organs was familiar enough, with large eyes on top, a fluttering flap of skin revealing the triple slit of a nose beneath the eyes, and on the bottom a wide mouth currently open in a broad oval showing no teeth.

  “Dr. Shwartz once told me,” Geary said, “that the nearly universal arrangement of organs we see is because it just makes sense. A creature wants eyes set as high as possible, able to view what’s being eaten and to avoid being eaten, and without risk of anything from the mouth or nose falling into them. The smelling organ should be near the mouth, and since scent rises placing it just above the mouth works best. And of course the mouth lowest down so whatever falls out won’t hinder the other organs.”

  “I guess something that evolved in really low gravity might look different,” Desjani said, gazing without visible emotion at the image on her own display. “Any idea what they’re waiting for?”

  “No. I wonder what their language sounds like?”

  Almost as if having waited for that prompt, the image began speaking, the words they heard coming with perhaps a second’s delay after mouth movements that didn’t match the human language sounds. “Happy welcome, human.”

  “They have a translator for our language?” Geary said, astounded. “Can we tell what their real language sounds like?”

  “All that’s coming through on audio is words in our language,” the comms watch reported.

  The new alien was still speaking, the understandable words still coming out of sync with the mouth movements so it looked like a badly dubbed video. “Taon happy meet human. Welcome.”

  “Is Taon that one’s name, or the name of their species?” Desjani wondered.

  The answer came on the heels of her question as the alien kept speaking. “Lokaa of Taon. Leader. Come Taon star. Bring all ships. Come Taon.”

  “What?” Geary said, once again surprised.

  “Taon welcome human! Be friend. Come Taon. Bring all ships!”

  Lokaa made a pursing motion with their lips. Moments later the transmission ended.

  Desjani shook her head, looking baffled. “Hi,” she said, “we just met and I love you. Please bring your big fleet of warships to one of our star systems. Are they serious?”

  Geary rested his cheek against one fist as he gazed at his own display. “Apparently. They know enough of our language to have programmed a translator, so they must know something about humanity.”

  “Maybe, but if they do, that’s my point,” Desjani insisted. “If they know anything about people, why would they invite a big fleet of us armed with lots of weapons to their star system? They must know how dangerous we can be, and they don’t know whether we’re Syndics, or Alliance, or from Old Earth, or even from those Shield of Sol idiots who settled stars past Old Earth toward the edge of the galaxy.”

  “I think this is where Victoria Rione would be saying they must want something from us.”

  “And this is where I’d do what I rarely did and agree with her.” Desjani raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t think the ambassador will jump feetfirst into this, do you?”

  “I’ll have to ask her,” Geary said. “But she didn’t want to deal with the Taon instead of focusing totally on the Dancers. Is that secure channel to the ambassador still set up?”

  “Set up and ready to go, Admiral. But you might want to talk to her in your stateroom.”

  Remembering his last talk with the ambassador, Geary had no trouble realizing the wisdom of that suggestion. He went back to his stateroom, sat down, took a moment to center himself, and then called.

  Ambassador Rycerz answered quickly, appearing slightly annoyed. “I assume this is about the communication from the Taon. They’re certainly enthusiastic, aren’t they?”

  “Very enthusiastic,” Geary said.

  “Why did they message us this time? Had you already sent them a message before you asked me?”

  He paused before answering to make sure he didn’t sound annoyed himself at the question. “Ambassador, it would have been physically impossible for a message from me to reach the Taon and for them to send a reply in the time that has passed since we arrived in this star system. That would require a minimum turnaround of six and a half hours from our current location.”

  “I see. That’s right.” Rycerz looked like she’d tasted something sour. “We’re finally in a position to make real progress with the Dancers. I don’t need this distraction.”

  “This is a new intelligent species,” Geary said. “One that seems to be happy to see us. I wouldn’t call that a distraction so much as an opportunity.”

  “Admiral, my job here is to establish firm relations with the Dancers.” Rycerz grimaced, running one hand through her hair. “I am not authorized to do anything else. I can’t go to Taon space. My instructions are clear that I am to go to Dancer space and stay there.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t talk to them here,” Geary said.

  “Talk to them.” Rycerz shook her head. “How can they speak our language?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How will they respond if we reject their invitation? We know nothing about them or their customs. For all we know, that level of fervent welcome is expected in their culture and anything less would be insulting. They might regard a rejection as even more insulting!”

  “How are you going to respond?” Geary asked, dumping it all in her lap rather than saying “I don’t know” again.

  Rycerz sat back, spreading her hands in the age-old gesture of helplessness. “My orders do not permit me to take Boundless to Taon. I am required to reach Dancer space and stay in Dancer space, if they permit that, until relieved by a subsequent diplomatic mission.”

  “Boundless is not the only Alliance ship here,” Geary said. “Why couldn’t some of our other ships go to Taon?” He made a face himself as his own words hit home. “It would be risky, since we know nothing about the Taon except that they have peaceful relations with the Dancers.”

  Rycerz gave him a flat look. “And risky because I can’t go, so you’d be the one making the initial contact with this species.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?” he asked, feeling once again on the defensive.